A look back: Detroit

Michigan Radio is giving 2011 a sendoff by taking a look back at some of the year's popular and important stories. As part of this retrospective series, here's a small collection of stories we covered about Detroit. You can also weigh in. Tell us your pick for the most important Detroit story this year (if you want to peruse all the stories we've covered in Detroit, you can find them organized under our Detroit tag):

January 9: Detroit ruin porn?

One of Detroit's defining characteristics nowadays is the huge amount of abandoned structures found throughout the city, and in recent years, these empty, often crumbling buildings have become popular subject matter for photographers, journalists, and artists, some traveling from as far away as Europe. But as Michigan Radio's Jennifer Guerra reported back in January, some people view using the city's decline as a muse to be exploitative. They deride the practice as "ruin porn."

February 14: Challenges for Bing

As part of a Changing Gears series examining leadership, Michigan Radio's Kate Davidson looked at some of the challenges facing Detroit Mayor Dave Bing. From a ballooning budget deficit to the blight of abandoned buildings to the city's struggling reputation following his predecessor's incarceration, Bing might have one of the toughest public service leadership roles in the country. Davidson talked to Bing long before the specter of bankruptcy faced the city.

April 15: Deporting an honor student?

In April, Michigan Radio reporter Sarah Cwiek covered the story of Ola Kaso, an honor student in Sterling Heights who found herself handcuffed by immigration officials in Detroit weeks before her high school graduation. There was a deportation order for Kaso and her mother. As Cwiek reported, Kaso came to the United States from Albania with her mother at the age of five and had been living in immigration limbo for years after a request for asylum was denied.

May 2: Detroit census difficulties

Census data released this spring showed a marked decrease in Detroit's population, a troubling issue for city officials because less people means less money, but many, including Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, believe that tens of thousands of residents went uncounted. A report from Michigan Radio's Kate Davidson examines some of the possible reasons for this undercount. Davidson talks to those working to come up with a more accurate figure.

Most people might assume that if they were the victim of a sexual assault, law enforcement would work as quickly as possible to bring the assailant to justice, but as Michigan Radio's Sarah Hulett reported earlier this month, that might not be the case if that attack occurs in Detroit. Hulett reported that Detroit police are facing a backlog of over 10,000 untested rape kits, many dating back years, and with diminished funding and resources, headway is minimal.

December 9: In Detroit, Drastic Steps to Avoid Bankruptcy

Perhaps the biggest story coming out of Detroit this year is the fact that the city is in danger of going broke. Last month, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing highlighted a financial report showing the city is in danger of running out of cash by April of 2012. Michigan Radio's Sarah Cwiek reported that Detroit leaders are trying to operate a city with "infrastructure and legacy costs [that] still reflect the much bigger city it once was." City leaders are facing tough decisions, and in the end, they might not make them. A state-appointed emergency manager could come in and strip city officials of their power.

How important is the quality of leadership to the economic vitality of a city? And what role can leaders play in the transformation of our region? Changing Gears is exploring these questions in a three-part series on leadership.

We start with the man who may have the toughest job of any big city mayor: Dave Bing of Detroit.

He has to keep his economically depressed city running, while convincing residents that Detroit must shrink to survive.

If the agency has their way, one of them will be Ola Kaso, an 18-year-old girl from Sterling Heights. She’ll be forced to leave just days after she graduates high school as one of the top students in her class.

Imagine trying to prove that thousands of people exist, when you have no idea who they are.

That’s the dilemma facing officials who think their communities were undercounted in the 2010 Census. But for Midwest cities preparing to challenge those numbers: How do you find people the Census Bureau missed? We went looking for answers in Detroit.

When Detroit’s numbers came out in March, Mayor Dave Bing quickly summoned the press. The tone was crisis — as if a natural disaster had struck. And in a way, it had. Detroit had lost a quarter of its people over the last ten years.

As cameras whirred, the mayor explained that Detroit’s population now stood at 713,777.

"Personally I don’t believe the number is accurate,” he said. “And I don’t believe it will stand up as we go through with our challenge."

School is out for the summer in Detroit. And for several schools in the cash-strapped district, classes are done forever.

Until today, that was the story at Catherine Ferguson Academy – an award-winning school for pregnant teens and young moms.

Changing the storyline

Preparations were under way at Catherine Ferguson Academy in the morning for a big rally to protest the school’s closure. Students were milling around in the hallways. Some were making signs. Across town, protestors were getting on a bus to join the demonstration.

The “Arab Spring” uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa have captured the attention of the whole world. And perhaps nowhere in the U.S. are the events being followed as closely as they are in metropolitan Detroit. The region is home to almost 500,000 Arab-Americans.

Many of those immigrants and their children say so far, the U.S. response to the wave of rebellions has left them hopeful that American foreign policy in the region is headed in the right direction.

About two years ago, police and prosecutors were conducting a walk-through of a Detroit Police storage room when they came across something as shocking as any crime scene: more than 10,000 rape kits, collecting dust.

“You don’t get 10,000-plus kits sitting in a storage facility because one person or one organization didn’t do their job. It just doesn’t work like that. You can’t get a problem that big,” says Michigan State University researcher Rebecca Campbell.